Dreaming big dreams. 

It sounds simple enough, and yet, who doesn’t want to dream big and strive for greatness? It’s a simple phrase but carries a lot of meaning when applied to DePaul athletics. 

But for DePaul and athletic director DeWayne Peevy, “dreaming big dreams” is bigger than just a phrase, it’s a change in mentality and attitude for the athletic department now looking to change its public perception and achieve big goals.

“Obviously, [Jean Lenti Ponsetto] did an unbelievable job of setting the standard for where DePaul could go,” Peevy said in an interview with The DePaulia. “Big East championships, academic prowess, we are pretty bottled up on the internal side. But when I looked at the job, the reason I wanted it, [was] because what it could be. And if I was going to invest in this for my career, take my family out of a comfort zone, try something new, I needed to hear from [DePaul] are you ready to take that next step because that’s what’s going to attract me here.”

Well, the university was able to convince Peevy to take the job and start a new era inside the athletic department. Peevy, who came over from Kentucky where he served as deputy director of athletics, is now looking to push the Blue Demons in a new direction, one that involves winning more games and becoming a premier athletic department in the Big East. 

But being on the job for only three full months and having to move from Kentucky to Chicago in the middle of a pandemic, has its own positives and negatives. During a normal day, Peevy can go through six or seven Zoom meetings and check in on various departments to see how everything is going. 

On the flip side, because of Covid-19 and all its restrictions, it’s also harder to meet everyone in person and develop a relationship with the student-athletes and coaches unless they are socially distanced or via Zoom. 

“So what it did give me is somewhat of a honeymoon and I got the chance to get a lot of things done within the staff,” Peevy said. “The Zoom related stuff allowed me to meet with a lot of more people because I can get a lot of more meetings in one day. Now, the bad part about this is I can get more meetings in one day — which means sometimes you can overdo it.” 

The first couple of months on the job have required Peevy to lead DePaul through a pandemic, figure out how the basketball season will look like and manage any revenue losses the athletic department might experience. 

Coming over from Kentucky where they are playing football, Peevy has experience of working through a pandemic as he was helping the Wildcats prepare for a fall season. But it has also helped him that DePaul and the Big East didn’t play any fall sports because it has allowed the athletic department to set all of their protocols and prepare for the winter and spring seasons. 

“Really the biggest adjustments we have had to make is some of the campus decisions we get as far as the NCAA putting protocols for men’s and women’s basketball on minimum testing standards, and the Big East we are having conversations on what we are doing,” Peevy said. “For the other sports, we don’t have standards yet because they are not in place. So, some of the decisions we had to make is that we wanted to, outside of the surveillance testing that all of our student-athletes did when they got here, we wanted to start instituting once a week or once every two weeks testing just for surveillance testing to make sure that we don’t have other issues going on within our full student-athlete family.”

In November, the men’s basketball team had to go on pause because of positive Covid-19 test results and lost their first four games. But DePaul will finally get to begin its season on Sunday at Iowa State in the Big East-Big 12 challenge. 

The expectations for the team are starting to change both internally and externally, with Peevy previously stating he wants the standard to reach the point of always qualifying for the NCAA Tournament. This season, however, it’s uncertain how many games the Blue Demons will get to play and how the team might look like after a long layoff and plenty of new faces on the roster. 

“It’s not going to be about a record or amount of wins or how we finish in the Big East,” Peevy said, “But you want to feel like we are putting together a strategic plan that I’m calling a dreaming big plan for what it looks like five years now for DePaul. You want all of our different pillars, all of our different departments, all of our different sports to be headed in that right direction. So, not just judging men’s basketball, but departments, coaches, I want to look at it to the point we are going in the right direction. If we feel like we have to make changes because we are not heading in the right direction, those things that are impacted.”

It has been 16 years since the Blue Demons have last made the NCAA Tournament, and men’s basketball head coach Dave Leitao is about to enter year six since returning in 2015. 

But Peevy, who worked closely with Kentucky men’s basketball head coach John Calipari, is now part of the Blue Demons’ family and is looking to help Leitao and his staff to improve the roster so the team can start gaining some momentum. 

“I’m now part of that family, you are my family, let’s figure this out together,” Peevy said. “We will worry about all that other stuff as we move on. Right now, my concentration is how can I help you in recruiting, what are your issues with this team that I can help us get to a point where we have a better chance and never have to pause again. That’s where I’m spending all my energies and figuring out how we can compete at a high level to expand this brand, to make it bigger, to take that first big step to getting us going in the direction we could.” 

While looking to get the men’s basketball team heading in the right direction, Peevy is also focusing on helping the women’s basketball team and head coach Doug Bruno get to one destination: the Final Four. Bruno has guided the team to 18 straight NCAA Tournament appearances, but has yet to make it past the Sweet 16. 

“I told [Bruno] I’m not just a man of my words, telling you this is what I’m going to do, I’m going to step up and actually do it,” Peevy said, “So, that’s why we are making a concerted effort to move our women’s basketball games to Wintrust because if they want to be one of those programs, that’s an advantage for us that some don’t have and if we let that go then what are we saying about ourselves. If you have made the tournament that many years in a row, how do we get to that first Final Four?”

Although the men’s basketball team still has a lot of room to grow on the court, Peevy is also looking to grow the women’s basketball team’s brand. Whether it be scheduling more games against the elite programs, more games on television or simply getting radio for the team, building that brand and getting more exposure is part of that dreaming big plan.

For Peevy, this doesn’t stop with just the two basketball programs but his plan involves every team at DePaul. Right now, it’s about dreaming big because there is still a lot of work ahead before the Blue Demons turn those dreams into reality. 

But the first phase was changing that mentality and Peevy has already gained a lot of support from fans and alumni, which is why the athletic department is running a social media campaign to dream big. There have been videos from former and current student-athletes, head and assistant coaches and DePaul alumni stating a simple message: “I dream big.”

“My goal from day one was trying to get people to dream with me,” Peevy said. “When I’m talking to all of our external constituents, these are not new ideas or thoughts. They have been dreaming about this too, some people have been dreaming about it for 10, 20, 30 years. I’m just starting and it’s exciting. But the fact that I’m not alone in it, but people want to help, that’s the thing that’s got me really excited.”